Theos-Talk Archives (August 2006 Message tt00682)

8/29/2006 12:06 PM

Dear Gary

You write that an unknown student spoke of the preface of ISIS UNVEILED  : 


	Subject: Aug. 28, Todays Quote

		overheard:

"HP Blavatsky began her public writings with a preface in Isis Unveiled
volume one which talks of two ever recurring questions regarding GOD and
Immortal SPIRIT of man, and then completes those public writings with The
Voice Of Silence talking about becoming COMPASSION ABSOLUTE and a new ARYAN
being born. So yes, the purpose of all this study includes head knowledge
and questions but the greater context is in our inner development, the
intuitive knowing of the heart."

	(an unknown student)

=============================

HPB wrote in ISIS UNVEILED   

				ISIS UNVEILED: 

				A MASTER-KEY

				      TO THE

		MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN

			SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.

			    BY   H. P. BLAVATSKY,

	CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 

"		Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." — MONTAIGNE. 
—————
VOL. I. :  SCIENCE.
—————


THE AUTHOR

Dedicates these Volumes

TO THE

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

WHICH WAS FOUNDED AT NEW YORK, A.D. 1875,

TO STUDY THE SUBJECTS ON WHICH THEY TREAT.





						PREFACE.

					——————————

THE work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat
intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science. It is
offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and
to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an
attempt to aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the
philosophical systems of old. 
   
      The book is written in all sincerity. It is meant to do even justice,
and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice. But it shows
neither mercy for enthroned error, nor reverence for usurped authority. It
demands for a spoliated past, that credit for its achievements which has
been too long withheld. It calls for a restitution of borrowed robes, and
the vindication of calumniated but glorious reputations. Toward no form of
worship, no religious faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been
directed in any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the
mere ephemera of the world's day. TRUTH, high-seated upon its rock of
adamant, is alone eternal and supreme. 
   
      We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the
human mind, nor in "miracle," whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a
transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity.
Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted author of Festus, that the
human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never
attained or even understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to
believe that man should be developing new sensibilities and a closer
relation with nature? 

The logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried to its legitimate
conclusions. If, somewhere, in the line of ascent from vegetable or ascidian
to the noblest man a soul was evolved, gifted with intellectual qualities,
it cannot be unreasonable to infer and believe that a faculty of perception
is also growing in man, enabling him to descry facts and truths even beyond
our ordinary ken. Yet we do not hesitate to accept the assertion of Biffé,
that "the essential is forever the same. Whether we cut away the marble
inward that hides the statue in the [  vi                 PREFACE.   ]

block, or pile stone upon stone outward till the temple is completed, our
NEW result is only an old idea. The latest of all the eternities 

will find its destined other half-soul in the earliest."  When, years ago,
we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted
sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our
thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT is GOD? Who ever saw the  IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man,
so as to be able to assure himself of man's immortality? 

    It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we
came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and
such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the
Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by
combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of
man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first
time we received the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no
other faith than an absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man's
own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the
kinship of man's spirit with the Universal Soul — God! The latter, they
said, can never be demonstrated but by the former. 

Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source from
which it must have come. 

Tell one who had never seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he
must accept it on faith or reject it altogether. But let one drop fall upon
his hand, and he then has the fact from which all the rest may be inferred.
After that he could by degrees understand that a boundless and fathomless
ocean of water existed. 

Blind faith would no longer be necessary; he would have supplanted it with
KNOWLEDGE. When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities,
controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit,
the reflective mind is overwhelmed with the conviction that if one man's
spiritual Ego can do this much, the capabilities of the FATHER SPIRIT must
be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the single drop in
volume and potency. 

Ex nihilo nihil fit; prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers — you have
proved God! In our studies, mysteries were shown to be no mysteries. Names
and places that to the Western mind have only a significance derived from
Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently we stepped in spirit
within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of "the one that is and
was and shall be" at Saďs; to look through the rent curtain of the Sanctum
Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to interrogate within the crypts which once
existed beneath the sacred edifice, the mysterious Bath-Kol. The Filia Vocis
— the daughter of the divine voice —

vii                                                                         
                                                     PREFACE

responded from the mercy-seat within the veil,* and science, theology, every
human hypothesis and conception born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever
their authoritative character in our sight. The one-living God had spoken
through his oracle—man, and we were satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless;
and it has been hidden only from those who overlooked it, derided it, or
denied its existence. 
   
     From such as these we apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps
hostility, although the obstacles in our way neither spring from the
validity of proof, the authenticated facts of history, nor the lack of
common sense among the public whom we address. 

The drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction of liberalism in
religion as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists nearer to the
point where they must surrender the despotic authority over the public
conscience, which they have so long enjoyed and exercised. When the Pope can
go to the extreme of fulminating anathemas against all who maintain the
liberty of the Press and of speech, or who insist that in the conflict of
laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail, or that any
method of instruction solely secular, may be approved;† and Mr. Tyndall, as
the mouth-piece of nineteenth century science, says, ". . . the impregnable
position of science may be stated in a few words: we claim, and we shall
wrest from theology, the entire domain of cosmological theory" ‡—the end is
not difficult to foresee.
   
    Centuries of subjection have not quite congealed the life-blood of men
into crystals around the nucleus of blind faith; and the nineteenth is
witnessing the struggles of the giant as he shakes off the Liliputian
cordage and rises to his feet. Even the Protestant communion of England and
America, now engaged in the revision of the text of its Oracles, will be
compelled to show the origin and merits of the text itself. The day of
domineering over men with dogmas has reached its gloaming. 
    
    Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic
philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible
key to the Absolute in science and theology. To show that we do not at all
conceal from ourselves the gravity of our undertaking, we may say in advance
that it would not be strange if the following classes should array
themselves against us: 
———————————————————————————————
* Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past
for a testimony from heaven, "was indeed performed by magic art" (vol. ii.,
p. 128). This latter term is used as a supercilious expression, just because
it was and is still misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct
the erroneous opinions concerning "magic art." 

† Encyclical of
1864.                                                          ‡ "Fragments
of Science." 

viii                                                                        
                                                     PREFACE.


      The Christians, who will see that we question the evidences of the
genuineness of their faith. 
    
     The Scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the same
bundle with those of the Roman Catholic Church for infallibility, and, in
certain particulars, the sages and philosophers of the ancient world classed
higher than they. Pseudo-Scientists will, of course, denounce us furiously. 

     Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not accept what
they do, but demand the recognition of the whole truth. 
Men of letters and various authorities, who hide their real belief in
deference to popular prejudices. 

     The mercenaries and parasites of the Press, who prostitute its more
than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will find it easy to mock
at things too wonderful for them to understand; for to them the price of a
paragraph is more than the value of sincerity. From many will come honest
criticism; from many — cant. But we look to the future. 
    
   The contest now going on between the party of public conscience and the
party of reaction, has already developed a healthier tone of thought. It
will hardly fail to result ultimately in the overthrow of error and the
triumph of Truth. We repeat again — we are laboring for the brighter morrow.


    And yet, when we consider the bitter opposition that we are called upon
to face, who is better entitled than we upon entering the arena to write
upon our shield the hail of the Roman gladiator to Cćsar:
			MORITURUS TE SALUTÂT! 

New York, September, 1877. 


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Best wishes,

DTB